Mona Arshi

Mona Arshi was born in West London where she still lives. She worked as a Human Rights lawyer for a decade before she received a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and won the inaugural Magma Poetry competition in 2011. Mona was a prize winner in the 2013 Troubadour international competition and joint winner of the Manchester Creative writing poetry prize in 2014. Her debut collection, Small Hands, was published by Pavilion Poetry, Part of Liverpool University Press. Small Hands won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015.

Everywhere

Mostly we are waiting for rain.Sometimes we let
it fall gentlyon our faces.This is what a flower does.

Yesterday, I saw his eyesin the eyes of a young man next
to the water-fountain.We tell the children, we should notlook for him, he is everywhere.

He is everywhere.We need not look in the black
sunflower seeds we take out forthe finches or between the blindechoes of our prayers.

After rain, we lift up sheets ofcanvas, like our own private
church-we expectno answer-nothing stirs,though he must be there.

A Pear from the Afterlife

By now the light is failing,his face is fading thoughin the window our heads are floating

like balloons in the glass.In his deathness, he never lookedmore alive.

‘Sis, you gotta let go of this ideaof definitive knowledge.Don’t look on it as a journey

more like a resettling ordusting off orre-tuning of the radio.

There are elm trees hereand these geckos slipsurreptitiously under the door

from my side to yoursand we suck onpebbles for comfort.

Someday… you should learn to swim;toss the bread in the water,agitate the shy fish;

lay down in the last hour of lightwait for the stars to fuss and faintagainst the cloth and then

listen to the risingchants of the sap,the grasses panting all around you.’

‘Too bad you have to go back,’ I say,and he sighs like an old manimpatiently re-teaching a child.

The scent of seawater drifts from his hair.‘There are so many ways oflooking at the moon

and you should trust the rain again.’‘Before you go,’ I say‘Will you bring me a pear from

the afterlife or a ripe papaya,an accidental patch of cloveror something that has roots

and grows in your silent soil;something that can liveon my tiny balcony?’